As security advances so does the opposition. Many malicious software makers are starting to notice that the average PC user is becoming smarter when it comes to avoiding emails that could be potentially harmful.

Recently these malicious programmers have started to take a different path. They have begun to create different types of threats. One type that you may have already seen is where the program will inform the user needs to download security software. Three other major programs which are known as Win32/FakeXPA, Win32/FakeSecSen, and Win32/Renos have been found on millions of computers.

Attacks have also been taking place in common files such as .PDF and .DOC. Even Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 8 have had several exploits in them. While there are updates out for these programs, many users don’t update their software. For example over 90 percent of attacks in Microsoft Office have been from an exploit that could be fixed with a simple update. Surprisingly this update is over 2 years old!

While many PC users look for updates through Microsoft they rarely look to update other programs. There are a lot of PC users that believe that the Microsoft updates will solve everything. While Microsoft does run the PC business due to most users using Windows, they can’t watch over every company’s individual software issues such as the issue with Adobe.

It’s surprising how many people have issues with malicious software but do nothing to fix it. There are updates for programs coming out all the time to fix these holes and help prevent attacks however many users don’t seem to check for updates as they should. Microsoft alone last year released 78 updates that fixed 155 issues.

Therefore if you are having continuous problems with attacks you should ensure that everything on your computer is up to date. While you may update Windows constantly it’s not enough to stop someone from attacking your computer.

Source: CNET

Re-Tweet This Post